Scammers in spring

You know its spring when the animals come out of their burrows and the scammers come up from the depths of wherever they’ve been hiding. Our newsroom tells me of phony notifications coming from Sask Power and from the City of Saskatoon regarding utility bills. In the past while I’ve had a notification that I’m getting a tax refund of $458. Just “click here” for details. Right; I hadn’t even done my 2017 taxes yet. Then I received an email purportedly from Air Canada telling me I was one of 200 customers from across Canada picked to take a survey and, in so doing, would get a cash reward of $95. I sniffed something a bit fishy but I thought I would play along until I got to the catch. The logo looked legit and so did the questions, like how many flights I take and are they for business or pleasure, the usual questions. Getting toward the end there was a choice: did I want $150 or a return flight for two anywhere Air Canada flies? I thought wow, the $95 has turned into $150 or flights. I clicked on the cash and bingo, then came the catch. Next page asked me to enter my VISA number including the code on the back so the money could be deposited to my VISA account. Needless to say I did no such thing. I forwarded the survey email to the real Air Canada and asked for a reply. I haven’t received one yet but I wanted to talk about it and the others before much time has passed. Be wary. There are bad people out there.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.